


Call Back the Dead

by PseudoLeigha



Series: The Reasons Mary Potter Still Isn't Done (Works in Progress) [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Harry Potter Next Generation, Master of Death, Next-Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 14:59:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11420403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudoLeigha/pseuds/PseudoLeigha
Summary: Albus Severus (Alsev), Scorpius Malfoy, Rose Weasley (Thorn Granger), and Lily Luna (Els) are all sorted into Slytherin and, like all fifteen year old Slytherins, decide that it would be a good idea to try to take over the world. This somehow devolves into deciding to make Rose the Master of Death (read: they were drunk), a not-quite-joke which resurfaces several times throughout the course of their lives, and in fact results in Rose acquiring all of the Deathly Hallows (through very little effort of her own) and eventually using them to bring back Sirius and be recognized as a Grand Sorceress, at which point she is eligible to be the Chief Warlock and lead the Wizengamot, which was in fact the entire point of the exercise. She also ends up with Sirius Black following her around like a lost puppy once the Director of the Department of Mysteries (Snape, who is alive) finally lets him leave the Ministry, but that's rather tangential to the plot.This is not compliant with Dreams of Hades. It easily could be, if I were willing to sacrifice the Snape/Lily dialogue and make the Director not Snape, but I'm not. You'll understand why when you get to chapter five.





	Call Back the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Posting all the chapters so far as one chapter, because they're all rather short.

**Chapter 1 – Fifth Year: The Idea**

**1 November 2022**

It started with firewhisky, on Harry Potter Day, 2022; with three fifth-year Slytherins (and one third-year tagalong), who gathered in Scorpius Malfoy's dorm room on his magically expanded bed to fulfill their annual tradition of recounting their families' stories from the last War. The war itself was now almost twenty-five years past. Most of the wizarding world had moved on. The Truce was a wonderful thing, like that. But Thorny was a Weasley, daughter of two thirds of the famed Golden Trio, and Alsev and Els, her cousins, were the children of the last and most famous of them. Scorpius' parents were more notorious than famous, and their role in the story was complicated. If anyone was to remember things the way they truly happened, it should be them, the Slytherin contingent of the Next Generation. After all, Slytherins saw things clearly.

By the end of the Recounting, Lily Luna, Els to her friends, was very drunk. "Do you ever wonder," she began, but her words quickly slurred into Parseltongue as she watched the snakes embroidered on Scorpius' bedhangings swim before her eyes.

"You're smashed, Els," Scorpius said. The accompanying giggle suggested that he was more than a little tipsy himself.

"Parsel, sis," Albus Severus, Alsev to anyone who didn't want to be hexed into next week, smirked, poking her in the side with his toe, no doubt amused by his normally overly-controlled sister so far gone she couldn't tell what language she was speaking.

"Sorry, loves," she said to the two non-Speakers, blinking hard and staring at her sometime-boyfriend in a clear effort to maintain her English. "D'you ever wonder how things would have been dif'rent if Dad was a Slytherin?"

Rose snorted, "Or if mum was a Ravenclaw?"

"Nah, if Aunt Hermione was a Ravenclaw, she'd never have met our dads, and they both probably would have died like, at least four times before the end of the war." Rose thought that Alsev was probably the next-soberest, after herself.

"From the stories," Scorpius volunteered, "it sounds like my father could have done well in Gryffindor, though Grandfather would have disowned him, no doubt."

"What, you think if my mum was in Ravenclaw, Draco Malfoy could have been the brains of the Golden Trio?"

Scorpius giggled again. "No, oh, Powers, no. He and Lord Potter would probably have hexed each other into pudding, or else spent all their time snogging in a broom cupboard."

The Potter children fell on Scorpius with pillows and a pile of objections to this image. Everyone knew that Draco Malfoy was a philanderer, and not picky about the gender of his partners, but that didn't mean they wanted to think about their father that way. Besides, Harry had always been very loyal to Ginny. Rose, personally, thought that Draco and Harry would have made a very good-looking couple – they were both handsome men – but the fact that they couldn't say more than two words in passing without one of them bringing up the past, and had nearly disinherited their Heir and burnt down the Burrow respectively when Scorpius and Els had admitted they were dating, argued more for the hexing into pudding alternative.

Eventually the Potters and Malfoy settled down (after a particularly vicious swing of her pillow overbalanced Els and she fell off the bed), and Els (still lying on the floor) stubbornly returned to her original question. "Sss-eriously, Thorny," she said with some effort, "what if he -" She hiccoughed. "Shit." Another hiccough. "Please, Alsev?" she fixed big, brown, puppy-dog eyes on her brother, still hiccoughing, until he performed the charm to make them stop. "You're the best!" she said with a radiant smile. "What was I say – oh, yeah! What if dad knew all the things we've learned since school started?"

"Um, he was a student, Els," Scorpius pointed out in confusion. "He learned everything we're learning."

"No, no, no, not class stuff, like rituals and stuff. Powers. I asked mum over the summer, and she didn't know anything about like, the Revel, or any of it, cos they're all Gryffindor, right? And Dad was muggle-raised. So he didn't know. An' no one ever told him, cos he was a Gryffindor, and they didn't know either."

Rose was nodding, though she stopped when she noticed the unconscious action. "My mum has a couple books on the Powers. I think she researched the Artifacts more, after, because of the Deathly Hallows, you know. But I dunno. We still don't acknowledge the Old Ways at home. The Weasleys have been Progressive for ages."

Scorpius sniffed, in imitation of his father. "A travesty, the state of the Wizarding World today!"

None of the others laughed. They didn't often talk about it, but they didn't actually disagree. The last two wars hadn't solved anything. The Ministry was still corrupt and useless, and worse, stopped anyone else from doing useful things, too. The Wizengamot was still full of old men who stubbornly refused to either change or die so that the younger generations could make changes. Muggles were pulling ever-further ahead in their standards of living, compared to wizards, and wizards were still hiding from them.

"We could fix it," Rose offered.

"Isn't that what your mum's been trying to do for years, Thorny?"

"Well… kinda," Rose blinked at Scorpius. "She got… side tracked, by creature rights. She didn't… She never really appreciated the bigger problems, the wizarding problems. I… think we need to deal with those, first."

"Get our own house in order before worrying about the neighbors?" Alsev asked sardonically.

"Basically."

"Well, it's all well and good to _say_ that, but…"

"No, it could work!" Els was excited, now. "You're the Malfoy Heir. You still have pull in the Dark Bloc. Dad and Jas don't care for politics. When Alsev hits his majority, I bet you _anything_ they'd let him take over the Potter Seats, and since we're the de-facto leaders of the Light Bloc, when we get married, there's the Major Alliance. Hey, Thorny, wanna be minister?"

"Oh, nine hells no! Have you seen the checks they've put on that position since the Fudge Administration? It's all work and no power, now. Chief Warlock, though, I could get behind."

"If you're not a sitting member of the Wizengamot, you'd need to achieve the rank of Grand Sorceress," Scorpius pointed out, giving her a challenging smirk.

"What, you think I couldn't?"

"There hasn't been a Grand Sorceress in what, four-hundred years? They didn't even give your dad Grand Sorcerer rank. You have to demonstrate power and achievements far beyond the norm, and repeatedly not-dying didn't count."

All four were silent for a long minute after that. Rose was planning on a career in the Department of Mysteries, which had achievements beyond the norm written all over it, but she was only average in power.

"It's too bad we couldn't figure out how to really use the Deathly Hallows," Alsev said, no doubt thinking of the Invisibility Cloak he had inherited after his older brother proved himself a true heir to his namesakes, and therefore not responsible enough to handle owning an Artifact of the Powers.

"Why couldn't we?" Els asked, finally rejoining the others on the bed.

"Well, we don't have the Wand, and the Stone is lost, and no one knows what it even means to be Master of Death."

"Well, yeah, but… we know where they are. In that clearing, and Dumbledore's tomb. I bet we could find them. And figuring out what it means to be Master of Death sounds like a job for the Department of Mysteries, doesn't it?" she asked pointedly.

"She has a point, Thorny." This came, surprisingly, not from Alsev, but from Scorpius. "Mistress of Death would be a shoo-in for Grand Sorceress. Even Dumbledore never managed that."

"Like you'd want me experimenting on the Cloak," Rose scoffed.

"No," Alsev said suddenly, "I mean, actually, I wouldn't mind… it's just… what would you do, if you were the Mistress of Death? You'd have to actually demonstrate your power somehow."

"I… dunno. I guess it depends what I could do. I mean, the cloak is basically a perfect shield. And the wand is super powerful. And the stone is supposed to bring back shades, right? Without having to really become a Necromancer."

"Yeah, but let's be real," Els said, suddenly seeming very sober. "You'd probably have to study _some_ necromancy to even figure out what the Hallows actually _do_ and what they have to do with the Deathly Power and all that."

"The first thing, though," Scorpius said, interrupting Rose's musings on whether she really wanted to study Necromancy, or even Black Arts – because dealing with the Deathly Power _would_ be Black Arts, "is probably finding the Stone. If we don't have that, there's really no point at all."

The others nodded their agreement, Rose with a certain amount of relief.

"Well, I guess that's settled, then," Els said. Before any of the others could ask her exactly what was settled, she continued imperiously, "Now go away, Alsev, Thorny. We have class in… six hours, and I fully intend to get a good bit of snogging in before bed."

Rose sniggered at the look on Scorpius' face, somewhere between resigned to staying up, and pleased at the prospect of a good snog. "Don't come crying to me for a hangover potion in the morning," she warned the younger girl, and received a rude hand gesture in return.

Alsev shot his best big-brother glare at his best friend, but did roll off the bed to follow Rose to the door.

"So, Mistress of Death?" he asked quietly, once they were alone in the corridor.

Rose snorted. "It'll never happen."

**Chapter 2 – Sixth Year: The Bond**

**April 2024**

Fifth and sixth and seventh years passed quickly, though it didn't really seem so at the time, especially when OWLs and NEWTs rolled around. Over those three years, Rose hardly thought at all about her little cousin's drunken decision to make her the Mistress of Death. She didn't precisely forget, but she never took it seriously. When Professor Farley, her Head of House, and later the Unspeakable who interviewed her for her job in the Department of Mysteries asked, she told them that she was interested in working with Death, but because she wished to understand the nature of the human soul and the universe, not because she had some fairy-tale dream of one day taming the Hallows. This had the advantage of being absolutely true.

She had already started independent studies in that direction, begging access to the Potter-Peverell library with Alsev in the summer after their fifth year. Harry had let them in only after they swore not to use anything they found in there until they reached their majorities at least. Els wasn't allowed in at all, but she said that was fine – she had other things to concern herself with. (This was more than a little unnerving to Harry.)

In sixth year, it became clear what Els, who had inherited her parents' penchant for trouble, and ending up in places she really oughtn't be, was so concerned with. Despite the fact that their parents had very carefully never told them where the main entrance was located, she had discovered the back door to the Chamber of Secrets in her third year (Rose's fifth). She managed to keep it a secret for over a year, until she finally decided to let Rose in at the end of her sixth year.

In Rose's sixth year, over the Easter Holiday, Hermione discovered incontrovertible proof that Ron had been cheating on her nearly as long as they had been married. There had been signs before, of course (Rose had suspected since she was eight), but so long as Hermione could turn a blind eye to the affairs, she would. When she couldn't any longer, she had confronted her husband in front of the children, demanding a divorce. Unlike the Potters, who were so co-dependent it was difficult to think of Harry and Ginny as separate people, and the Malfoys, who had an unabashedly open marriage of convenience, Hermione could and would leave her husband for what she considered to be a great dishonor.

Their argument had gotten nasty, with Ron accusing Hermione of any number of failings as a wife, excuses for his infidelity, and Hermione shouting that Ron had never changed at all – he was still the self-centered boy who had walked out on herself and Harry that night in the Forest of Dean. At this, Ron had truly lost his temper, insisting that Hermione had always been in love with Harry, and that he half-suspected the kids were never his at all. Hugo had been terribly hurt by this. It was true that both of them took after their mother more than their father, but if there was ever any doubt that Rose, at least, had inherited his temper, it was erased by her immediate Repudiation of the man who sired her.

Ron and Rose had been close before Rose went to Hogwarts. She could still remember his joke on the platform about disinheriting her if she went anywhere but Gryffindor. He hadn't, really, but their relationship had only grown more strained over the years, as she became friends with Scorpius instead of enemies and followed the Truce religiously, letting bygones be bygones, in defiance of her father's attitude. By third year, their fights were a thing of legend, even moreso than her parents' habit of rowing all through Hogwarts. For Yule that year, Scorpius had given her a knife and a book and a note that said, "You can't choose your family, but you can choose to leave."

Rose didn't speak to him for ages, thinking that he was just as bad as her father said, wanting to come between herself and her family. But then over the summer she had been reduced to tears when she heard her father and Uncle Harry drinking and discussing their Hogwarts years. "Never can trust a Snake," Ron said, no thought for the fact that his own daughter and two of Harry's children were Slytherins.

"Hey!" Harry had objected.

"I know, I know, he turned out to be a hero in the end," Ron had said, and it was clear he had really mostly meant Severus Snape, "but he was still a ruddy git. And you can't say him and bloody Riddle weren't exactly what that House was made for."

Harry had left, then, angrily, after telling Ron off for not being able to let go of Hogwarts prejudices twenty years later. Rose had run to her room and blockaded the door, crying over the note Scorpius had sent with the knife. For the first time, she opened the book, and found that it was all about breaking House bonds. He had marked the chapter on Repudiation, all about how a child could choose to, essentially, cast themselves out of their family tree, like Andromeda Black, Teddy's grandmother, who cut ties with her family to marry Ted Tonks. She finally understood, that night, that Scorpius had only meant to give her the option to leave, if she ever truly needed to.

She hadn't used the knife and the knowledge in the three years that followed, though she carried it with her whenever she was home, and Powers knew the temptation had been immense on more than one occasion. She could not stand the thought of leaving her mother and her brother as well as her father, and since she had reached her majority without using it, she thought she never would.

When Ron declared, in the midst of his break-up with his wife, that he doubted whether Rose was ever his daughter, she did, slicing open her palm and declaring on her blood and magic that she would no longer be Rose Weasley, never again a scion of his house. She became Rose Granger in the eyes of Magic (though the legal name change would take a bit longer), and threw him out of the house for dishonoring her mother. There was fear in his eyes, along with shame, as he disapparated from their front lawn, no doubt running home to Grandma Weasley.

The first day back to school, Rose had gotten an owl with breakfast: "Meet me in my room after dinner. –LL" The younger girl had dragged her through the tunnels, down twisting stairs, into an unused bedchamber with an enormous tapestry spread out on the bed and from there to a small, somewhat dusty sitting room.

"Is it true?" Els had demanded, at the same time Rose asked, "Where are we?"

Els had ignored Rose's question. "Are you really… not a Weasley anymore?" There were tears in the corners of her eyes.

Rose had nodded. She hadn't realized, in the heat of the moment, that by cutting off her father, she would also be cutting herself off from her cousins, but it was true. She was no longer a Weasley; no longer related to Els and Alsev, at least as wizards reckoned such things.

Els, with her characteristic impetuousness, had declared with a sniffle, "Well, if you can't be my cousin, you'll have to be my sister instead."

Rose had laughed, and told her in no uncertain terms that she would _not_ marry Alsev or Jas just to be Els' sister. Els had smacked her and told her not to be gross before digging a scroll covered in her own messy scrawl out of her bag.

"Read this," she had ordered her older cousin.

Rose did. It was a ritual, apparently to bind the two of them together as blood-siblings, a variation on a binding she must have gotten from Alsev, because Rose recognized it as soul magic.

"Well?"

"I always wanted a sister," Rose said with a weak smile.

Els had flung herself across the couch at the older girl, nearly strangling her in a hug. They did the ritual at once, Els' intentions binding them by blood; Rose's knowledge binding them deeper than that – soul-sisters, in the truest sense of the words.

"Where are we?" Rose had asked again, once they recovered from the rush of magic that accompanied the impromptu ceremony.

"The Chamber of Secrets!" Els said, her eyes lighting up.

Rose's mouth dropped open. "Are you shitting me?"

Els' grin was the epitome of smugness. "Nope. Come look!"

The younger girl had dragged her newfound sister back to the bedchamber and the tapestry – a Slytherin family tree, running back nearly five-hundred years. They watched as black and silver threads re-wove themselves on the emerald field to form the name 'Emily Rose Granger,' connected by a sibling arc to 'Lily Luna Potter.' She traced the lines back, running her fingers over 'Harry James Potter,' and then, to her surprise 'Lily Irene Evans' a direct descendant of 'Tom Marvolo Riddle.'

"Els," she had whispered, "How long have you known about this?"

The younger girl shrugged. "A while." She shifted uncomfortably, relaxed enough here, so far from all the other Slytherins, to act her age.

Rose considered for about half a second before she said, "I won't tell anyone if you don't."

She received one of Els' trademark dazzling grins in response. "Wanna see the library?"

Rose did, very much, want to see the library, and the Chamber proper, where Harry had fought the Basilisk to rescue Ginny, though perhaps not the passage up to Moaning Myrtle's loo, which was disgusting in every version of the story. The Basilisk was still perfectly preserved, twenty-five years later. Rose could practically feel magic radiating off its corpse. The girls gave it a wide berth, and quickly retreated back to the small sitting-room-like area. In Els' words, the Big Chamber was creepy.

The library, according to Els, was a mess when she first found it. A previous heir – probably Riddle – had obviously taken everything he thought he might need in the future with him when he left the castle. There were still piles of books on subjects ranging from Parseltongue to wardcrafting to Black Arts primers. There were only three books on soul magic, apparently missed in the purge, but they all contained what was to Rose new information, not mentioned in any of the texts she had seen in the Potter-Peverell library. There was a whole section on Necromancy – all theory, with no practical guides, but that was okay: Rose didn't want to actually become a necromancer. Els taught her the Parseltongue password to enter the Chamber, and she spent most of her free time there seventh year, taking notes on the dark books – who knew when she would have another chance?

**Chapter 3 – Seventh Year: The Wand**

**28-29 June 2025**

"You two are _insane_!" Alsev hissed at his two best friends. It was their last night in the dorms, and he, Scorpius, and Rose were celebrating and mourning the end of their time at Hogwarts by getting very drunk, this time in Rose's room. The venue was strangely barren – everything was packed but the firewhisky and Rose's robes for the ride home. Els had turned down Scorpius' invitation to their little party, saying that the three of them should enjoy their last night at Hogwarts together.

Scorpius, ever the troublemaker at heart, had just suggested that they go steal the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's Tomb. Rose hadn't immediately shot him down. She blamed it on the alcohol, but it didn't seem like such a terrible idea. After all, no one else knew it was even there. The official story was that Harry had destroyed it after the Final Battle.

"It's only insane if you don't come with us," she argued, rather sensibly in her own opinion. Alsev was the best cursebreaker among them. He could have had a career with Gringott's if he didn't want to go into politics, and they didn't take just anyone.

"Come on, Alsev! It's our last night. Our last chance. How is Thorny supposed to become the Mistress of Death if we don't get her the Wand?"

Both Alsev and Rose snorted with laughter at this. "It's not like we have the Stone, either," Alsev pointed out.

Scorpius waved this objection away. "Don't you want to out-do Jas and Carson's leaving prank?"

"Not really. I gave up competing with Jas years ago, you know that."

"I want to end our Hogwarts years on a high note!" Scorpius pouted.

"You're engaged to Els and poised to take over the Malfoy seat in the Wizengamot at the age of eighteen. How much higher of a note can you get?" Rose asked rhetorically.

"Stealing the Elder Wand," the blond boy replied seriously. "Don't make me beg, Als. I will. You know I will."

"But Malfoy, you know I love it when you beg," Alsev teased, only to immediately blush when he realized he'd said it aloud.

Rose sat back to enjoy the show. Scorpius _always_ won at gay-chicken, mostly because he was openly bisexual and Alsev was still furiously denying that he was gay. It started with Scorpius sliding bonelessly off the conjured sofa to kneel in front of Alsev, giving him his best imitation of Els' puppy dog eyes. "Please?" he nearly whispered.

Alsev shook his head, eyes sparkling with alcohol and amusement.

"Als… Alsev." Alsev shivered at Scorpius' tone. Scorpius must have noticed, because he said it again. "Alsev… please? For me?"

"No. It's insane," Alsev laughed a little hysterically.

Scorpius slid back onto the couch, one arm around his friend's neck, practically sitting on his lap. "Please? You know I'd do it for you… I'd do anything for you…"

"Anything?"

"Anything at all, love," Scorpius' lips were brushing Alsev's ear by this point, as he drew out the word, " _Anything_."

And then, just when it looked like Alsev was about to crack, Scorpius nibbled his earlobe.

"Argh! Get off!"

"Oh, believe me, I am," Scorpius murmured, still clinging to Alsev as the dark-haired boy pushed him away.

"Fine! I'll do it! Whatever! Just let me go!" Alsev was very, very red.

"Done!" Scorpius bounced to his feet. "Come on!"

"You made it almost a minute that time, Alsev," Rose informed him, smirking at her one-time cousin.

Alsev stalked out of the room muttering about how unfair it was that Scorpius was so unscrupulous about using his sexy wiles, and why on Earth he had to be dating _Els_ , of all people. He reappeared minutes later under the Invisibility Cloak to find Rose and Scorpius lying on the bed giggling at the idea that he might try something if the blond was with anyone else but his sister. "Are you coming or not?" he asked shortly, then made exasperated noises for the entire five minutes it took for Rose to dig her cloak out of her packed trunk and Scorpius to go change into what he referred to as his sneaking-out clothes. This included charming his hair and skin not to reflect the light, since he was so pale he practically glowed like a ghost under the night sky.

The three Slytherins cast a barrage of charms on themselves to increase their ability to move silently and unseen before slipping out onto the grounds through one of the dungeon side-entrances. Though none of them had said it, it was also incredibly convenient to have Alsev present as a Parselmouth to open the door again when they wanted to go back.

They moved swiftly to the white marble tomb, glowing in the faint light of a crescent moon.

"Are you guys sure about this?" Albus asked.

"Yes!" the others answered in tandem.

"All right, then, Scorpius, help me put up a Gambol's Circle. Rose, keep watch until we can all get inside the circle."

Rose scanned the grounds as the boys walked a wide circle around the Tomb, carving runes of light into the long grass to mark the edges of an area within which time would seem to stand still, at least from the outside. It was normally used to facilitate illegal duels, and would prevent anyone from seeing anything unusual occurring around the Tomb, as well as absorb any spells that bounced off the monument.

"Alright, everyone in," Alsev ordered. Rose watched as the boys walked through the barrier and apparently disappeared.

"We good?" Scorpius asked when she joined them.

She nodded as Alsev said, "Of course we are. I cast it, didn't I?" The others shared a smirk at his casual arrogance, which he reserved only for his skills with Runes and Arithmancy.

Three hours later, after numerous tedious diagnostic spells and careful disenchantments under the watchful, bossy direction of Alsev (whose mood slowly improved as he practiced his favorite art), the tomb was finally opened. Dumbledore's remains, perfectly restored and preserved by magic, like the basilisk in the Chamber, looked as though he could be only sleeping. The Elder Wand was tucked beneath his folded hands.

"What the bloody hell are you waiting for?" Alsev asked, obviously feeling the strain of holding one of the more recalcitrant enchantments in stasis while the others levitated the capstone away.

Scorpius' eyes met Rose's across the dead man. "Take it," he said.

Rose bit her lip, screwed up her courage (for Slytherins could have courage, even if it wasn't their defining trait), and slipped the wand out of the tomb. It thrilled to her hand as though it was made for her. She stared at it for several seconds, unable to believe that she truly was holding _the_ Elder Wand, until Alsev said irritably, "Hurry the fuck up and put the lid back!" breaking the spell.

They closed the tomb, Alsev insisting on an extra hour to re-do all the enchantments, so that no one would know it had been entered at all, and then the three of them spent a good hour and a half testing the limits and power of the Deathstick. It was, as the legend suggested, uniquely suited to offensive spells, and suited Rose's hand best out of the three of them. The boys jokingly insisted that this was because Rose was clearly the most vicious among them, but she rather suspected that it was because she was the one to take it from the tomb, even though it had been Scorpius' idea, and Alsev had done most of the work.

By the time they crept back into their dorms and bid each other goodnight, it was nearly daybreak.

Not knowing what else to do with it now that she had it, Rose hid the wand at the very bottom of her trunk, setting it aside as a reminder of her last Hogwarts adventure. After all, it wasn't as though being the new master of the Deathstick would really help her realize her ambitions to understand the fundamental makeup of the universe. For now, all it could possibly be was a death sentence, should any more power-hungry wizards realize that it still existed and was in her hands.

So far as she knew, neither she nor either of the boys mentioned their Last Adventure to anyone, though a certain birthday gift, seven years later, suggested that Scorpius, at least, had mentioned it to one other person.

**Chapter 4 – Twenty-Five: The Plan**

**2032**

Rose did not expect anything much of her twenty-fifth birthday. Twenty-five was not an important age, for muggles or wizards. She would go to work as usual, then to dinner with her mother and brother, his current girlfriend, whatever her name was, and Onyx Zabini, whom she couldn't decide if she was really interested in dating or not. There would be a big party for her at the Potters' house over the weekend, but with so many people in the Potter-Weasley(-Granger) extended family, at this point there was a birthday party or some holiday to celebrate almost every weekend of the year. The weekend after this one, for example, would be Maia and Matar Malfoy's second birthday (Els had caved to the alliterative naming trends of the wizarding world despite her hatred of her own double-L, dooming her twins to the inevitable monikers 'Girl Ems' and 'Boy Ems'). Teddy and Vickie's daughter would be turning four the week after that.

There was nothing particularly special or exciting about the day, so far as Rose was concerned, which made it very surprising to return home after dinner to find that someone had broken into her flat to leave a birthday gift. It was clear immediately who had done it, of course – there was only one cloak like that in existence, and only one stone. The accompanying note, written in her brother-in-law's perfect, copperplate handwriting said:

_In the grand tradition of the Old Stories, we hereby present you these dangerous and mysterious artifacts, with no explanation or advice save: Happy Birthday. Use them well._

Rose had walked to her bedroom in a daze and opened her old school trunk, retrieving a wand she hadn't touched in more than half a decade. She laid it on the table with its fellow Hallows, and sat up half the night, staring at the treasures and trying to wrap her mind around the implications of this gift. Why had they given her the Hallows? What would they want in return? What did it mean to be the Mistress of Death?

At half past three, she finally gave up, speaking the words, "Holy shit," aloud, and pouring herself a shot before abandoning the artifacts to get some sleep.

In the morning, she cursed herself for leaving such valuable artifacts lying on her kitchen table, for all the world to see, had they cared to look. She tucked them away in her school trunk, warding it heavily before heading to work.

That weekend, she cornered her three friends to ask them what the bloody hell they meant by giving her _that_ gift. Scorpius had opted for the too-innocent 'what gift?' while the Potter brats smirked like twin loons. Eventually they had admitted that Els had found the Stone her seventh year, and had used it only a few times, mostly to speak to historical figures and the people from the Stories – Lupin and Tonks, her uncle Fred, Sirius Black and James and Lily Potter. Lily Potter had eventually convinced her to stop using the stone. It was, her namesake had told her, dangerous to use too often or for too long, and had a history of driving its owners to suicide. Els, with no loved ones who had died, was able to set it aside, and it had lived in her jewelry box ever since.

Scorpius had finally let it slip a couple of months prior that he, Alsev and Rose had stolen the Wand on their last night at school, and that it had chosen Rose. Els, still enamored of the idea of her soul-sister becoming the Mistress of Death, had insisted that they ought to give her a chance to figure out how to use the Hallows properly, since apparently no one knew. They had convinced Alsev to lend her the cloak, with the caveat that it should be returned when the next generation of Potters came of age. Since Jas' oldest child was not quite a year old, they figured that should be plenty of time to figure out how the damn thing was supposed to work.

Rose, for one, was relieved that the Cloak was only on loan. She didn't think she could handle being outright _given_ all of the Hallows, even if it was more of a research request than an outright gift.

That night, she fished the Stone out of her trunk, and turned it three times in her palm, as Harry always said he had done, in the story, wondering who she ought to call back. Like Els, she had never lost anyone very close to her before. Her mind drifted back to the same old stories, and before she knew it, a petite red-head with flashing green eyes had appeared before her.

"Who are you?" the spirit asked, peering closely at Rose. "You don't look a bit like Harry's daughter, but you kind of feel like her."

Rose smirked. Out of all the heroes of the Old Stories, Lily Evans Potter was her favorite, and also the one least well known. "Thorn Granger," she said. "Els and I are soul-sisters."

"Come again?"

"Erm… how much do you know about soul magic?"

Now it was Lily's turn to smirk. "Enough to beat old Moldy Shorts at his own game. Seriously, though, I read through most of Jamie's library while we were in hiding. It was dead boring. The hiding, not the reading."

"Do you know Palmage's Marriage of Souls?"

"The one that's like a mutual living horcrux thing?"

"Yeah. Els adapted that thinking to make us blood siblings, but since I knew the original version already, it went a bit further than I think she intended," Rose explained warily, half expecting the spirit to react badly to finding out that her granddaughter had unwittingly been dabbling in soul magic long before she found the Resurrection Stone.

The apparition cocked her head to the side and squinted as though trying to visualize the exact sequence of events, and then said, "Huh. So I guess I was right, thinking that knowledge and belief makes a difference for that sort of thing. Cool." She flopped into an armchair. "So what do you do, and why do you have the Stone? I distinctly remember telling… Els? That that thing is dangerous."

They talked late into the night, and for most of the next day as well. By Sunday evening, they had a plan.

…

It was, perhaps, deeply ironic, that the Mistress of Death and sole researcher focusing on the Veil of Death in the Department of Mysteries had never seen anyone die, at least outside of a hospital. There were plenty of people in the department who were old enough to have fought in Voldemort's Second War, if not in his first as well. Everyone in the Time Chamber had seen a particularly gruesome accident not long before she had officially joined the department, and just last year, there had been an accident in the Intelligence Lab, not unlike the one the man who sired her had suffered thirty-odd years before, which resulted in the death of an intern. Rose, when she had been nothing more than a prospective intern herself, had been told that no girl of eighteen who couldn't even see a thestral had any right to study the Veil, no matter how much research on soul magic and necromancy she might have done.

Young and every bit as impetuous as she often accused her soul-sister of being, she had marched right out of the Department and floo'd to St. Mungo's, where she spent two weeks more or less living in the Emergency and Hospice wards, observing Death and the dying. When she came back, the Director, who apparently had taken her abrupt departure as an indication that she was quitting, had legilimized her, smirked and muttered to himself that he ought not to have expected anything less from Hermione Granger's daughter, though he never did say how he knew her mother.

He spent the next four hours giving her a grueling oral exam on necromancy and soul magic. Rose couldn't see why he didn't just do the job himself, if he knew so much about it already. At the end of the assessment, he had declared her background knowledge "passable" and had moved directly into the most subtle legilimency attack she had ever felt, as he discussed the specifics of her duties as an intern and the paperwork she would need to complete.

Finally, he witnessed her Oaths of Unspeakability and passed her a time table. The only indication she was given that she had done well in the test of her Occlumency was that he removed two of the three practice blocks from her schedule with an impatient tap of his wand.

"I trust I need not tell you not to enter the Veil," he concluded in an exceedingly dry tone. "I would be deeply disappointed to have to complete the paperwork which always follows the… loss of another intern." Rose hid a smirk. She would have bet anything he was a Slytherin.

"Indeed not, sir," she said, and was dismissed with a wave.

Seven years later, Rose still knew almost nothing about her boss, except that he was the only person in the department who knew more than she did about Necromancy and the Deathly Power (most of the Department were Progressives). It still baffled her why she was even employed at all, given that she had never once managed to surprise him with any of her findings. Still, outside of her own interns (who never seemed to want to stick around very long, and often left without notice, citing reasons ranging from 'the veil creeps me out' to 'Unspeakable Granger creeps me out') the Director was probably the person she talked to most often, and she felt that, after seven years, they had established a degree of rapport. For example, he occasionally answered her questions without being a completely scathing bastard, and would often discuss and debate more complex theories at length when she was stuck on a particularly thorny problem and he was bored of the endless paperwork that accompanied his position.

The Plan, such as it was, involved taking the Stone to the Director, and getting him in on the problem, since Lily and Rose had reached a dead end.

On Monday morning, Rose entered the Office of the Director of Unspeakables and stood, waiting patiently, until he deigned to recognize her, just as she did nearly every Monday. She wasn't sure if he ever left the building, and he never seemed to sleep.

"What do you want, Granger?" he asked, not even looking up from an expense report.

"An artifact has come to my attention, sir," she said, trying hard to keep a smirk from her voice. He was totally going to flip.

" _What_ artifact, Granger?" he asked, still not looking up.

"This one." Rose turned the stone in her hand, and Lily's shade appeared.

"Oh. My. God," the spirit's jaw dropped. "Sev, you got _old_."

**Chapter 5 – Alternate History**

**2032**

" _Which_ one, Granger?" The man finally looked up, tossing his quill aside irritably, apparently unable to see or hear the apparition in front of him.

"Severus Snape, you bloody idiot! Lily Luna said you were dead! You'd best explain yourself right now! Don't think I can't hex you from beyond the Veil!"

"I'm _waiting_ , Granger."

Rose was staring at the spirit, who apparently realized what was going on, and regained her temper with obvious effort. "He can't hear me," Lily said shortly. "Give him the stone, Thorn."

Rose hesitated, but held it out to the older man. _Severus Snape? The war hero? The Director?_ "This one, sir."

She handed it over, and at once Lily faded from her sight. The Director must have been able to see her, though, and hear her, because he went even paler than usual and whispered, "Lily?" before cringing before an unseen force like a scolded child.

"If you would be so kind as to shut up, I would gladly explain," he said sharply.

After another moment of listening, he placed the stone on the desk and slid it across so that Rose could touch it, too. She reached out and placed a single finger on it, as though it was a tiny portkey.

"Dark Powers," Lily was complaining, "I hate not being able to touch things. Right. Now that we can all hear each other, start talking, mister. Why are you alive?"

The Director, Snape, smirked at that. "I happen to be _very_ good at potions, and time travel, though I suppose all that was after your time."

"I know it's basically your nature to be as obfuscating as possible, but stop being such a cryptic bastard, Sev."

"You're one to talk," Snape muttered, but Lily ignored him.

"Lily Luna, that's my _granddaughter_ , if you don't know, told me that you died of a snake bite, after giving Harry a bunch of old memories and somehow leaving him with the impression that you were head over heels in love with me. What the bloody hell?"

"Excuse me for being a bit distracted _dying_ ," the man said in acid tones. "I only _meant_ to give him the memory of Dumbledore telling me he would have to sacrifice himself, but it was tied to the circumstances of my oath to the buggering old goat, which was _your death_ , by the way, and _that_ was tied to a few key memories of you – not behind the scenes, those were all separate – but in the end it was easier and faster to just hand them all over and get rid of him so I could go about _faking_ my death."

"Faking your death?" Rose ventured.

" _Obviously,_ " the Director and the dead woman answered in tandem. It was rather uncanny.

"Can I ask _how?"_

The man sighed. "Though it was not common knowledge, I was once depended upon to reverse the mishaps of students using time turners throughout Hogwarts castle. One of my more interesting duties, admittedly, despite the fact that I rather detest time travel myself. In the spring of 1996, the golden trio led an incursion into the Department to attain a prophecy at the behest of the Dark Lord, destroying, in the process, the vast majority of the Time Room and the Hall of Prophecy. I obtained a sample of the Sands of Time while they created their unwitting distraction, and used my years of extensive notes on the development of the Time Turner to enchant one for my own purposes.

"Two years later, when the Dark Lord attacked Hogwarts, I was bitten by his familiar and left to bleed out in the Shrieking Shack. I had, of course, anticipated that the snake might someday be used as the instrument of my death – he preferred that traitors should die painfully – and so I formulated an antivenin which I administered to myself any time I was likely to be in its company. It was worth the effort to repeatedly remove the unused antivenin from my blood when I was not bitten, to have the insurance against such an attack.

"When I was bitten, I immediately resolved to come back, no matter how many hours might pass, and save myself from the bloodloss, thus allowing the creation of a minimally-paradoxical closed time loop. Before my future-self dared reveal himself, I needed to get rid of Potter and your bloody parents, thus the rushed memory-extraction. They retreated, and he dropped the concealment charms behind which he had been waiting, healing me. When I was sufficiently recovered, I concealed myself and used the time-turner to go back, appearing in time to watch my former self be attacked by the serpent, resolve to save himself, and send the Gryffindor children away, after which I healed him and allowed him to depart, closing the loop.

"After the loop closed, I created a reasonably realistic simulacrum of myself and departed. No one would doubt, after all, that I had died, given the witnesses to the event and the vast quantity of blood on the floor. So far as I know, no one tested the body. I had a few contacts from the interbellum here in the Department, and took a position in the Intelligence Lab with few questions asked. Simple enough."

"Oh, yeah," Lily's shade said sarcastically, " _so_ simple. Never thought to check in and let any of them know you weren't dead? Not even after you were posthumously cleared of all charges? Seriously, Sev?!"

The man's dark eyes softened slightly. "Lily… you know as well as I do that they are far more willing to forgive the faults of the dead." Then he smirked. "Surely one of your descendants has informed you how your own reputation has changed since your death."

Lily scowled. "Oh, yeah, right paragon of virtue I am." She made a rude gesture at the man. "Bet they think I was a virgin at my wedding, too. Seems no one told Harry _anything_ about what I did in the war, or much about me at all. I mean, I guess it's just as well – Sirius obviously didn't want to speak ill of the dead – but _you_ could have told him."

"Where would be the fun in that?" Mischief lit the Director's eyes. "Besides, he was an utterly insufferable child."

"You take that back, Severus Snape!" the spirit glared. "You never liked James, but Harry's nothing like him! Petunia made sure of that!"

"The same disregard for rules, the same arrogance, the same attitude problems, yes, I see your point, nothing alike at all."

"Oh, stuff it, Alex. You know he could as easily have gotten any of those traits from me."

"I missed you, Irony."

"I missed you, too." The two old friends grinned at each other, sharing some sort of wordless communication until Rose cleared her throat.

"So, um… just to be clear… you two were never in love?"

"She was like a sister to me," the Director said firmly.

"He totally was. He didn't figure out it was more _storge_ than _eros_ until after we had sex!" the spirit added brightly.

"Lily!"

She shrugged unrepentantly. "It's true. And shocking the kiddies is fun!"

" _She_ figured it out _before_ we had sex," the man said drily, raising an eyebrow, "and propositioned me _anyway_."

"Sev! You said you wouldn't tell anyone!"

"You're dead, and you did say you're enjoying the shock factor."

"That doesn't mean I want you going around implying that I'm into incest!"

"My sincerest apologies, I only meant to imply that you were an utter slag."

"Oh, come off it! It's not like I was _Black_."

Rose was certain her face must be glowing. "Perhaps I'll just… leave you two to catch up a bit, before we discuss the idea Lily and I developed…?" she asked rather rhetorically, withdrawing her finger from the stone and edging toward the door.

The Director cocked his head to one side, apparently listening to the spirit before saying, "Yes, indeed. Return after lunch, Granger."

"Yes, sir." Rose fled.

…

"Whose idea was this?" the Director asked, several hours later. He was obviously unimpressed with the two young women before him.

"Erm… Lily's?" Rose admitted reluctantly. The shade nodded eagerly. They hadn't been able to think of anything better.

"And what, _precisely_ , is the Resurrection Stone known to do?"

"Drive its owners to suicide?" The researcher from the Death Chamber had a sinking feeling about this.

The Director pinched the bridge of his nose with the hand that was not touching the stone in question. "And which part, exactly, of just _walking through the Veil_ , on the advice of _a shade summoned by the Resurrection Stone_ sounds like anything _other_ than suicide, to you?"

"The part where I may have kind of accidentally performed Palmage's Marriage of Souls when I was seventeen, and also the part where I do have all three of the Deathly Hallows," she defended herself.

"That has to count for something, right?" Lily asked, probably rhetorically.

The Director had glared at her. "No! No one in living memory knows what those artifacts are meant to _do_. And the more you speak, the more convinced I am that I should consign the stone to the Warehouse."

"That's – I'm wounded, Sev," the shade pouted.

He raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "And I am no longer sixteen, Lily. I daresay I've learned a bit of caution in my old age."

She sighed loudly. " _Fine_. You're very good, you know. Both of you. Properly suspicious. I have been telling the truth, but there's no way I can make you believe me. So I suppose the only thing to do is, put the stone away for now, and find a way to question Death and ask him yourselves how they work!"

The Unspeakables stared at each other for a long moment, baffled by the simplicity of that particular suggestion. "I… um… There has to be a way to do that, right?" Rose asked hesitantly. "Question Death?"

"Oh, of course, we'll just need two cc's of mouse blood, a few bits of wood, and an egg," the Director snarked. Rose blinked at him in confusion.

Lily giggled. "It's probably a bit more complicated than that, but…"

"Indeed. Well, then. I shall bid you farewell for now, Lily."

"Laters, Amicus!" she said cheerfully.

"It's _Aquinas_ , Irony," the man said, rolling his eyes.

"Sev! I told you I was going to guess!"

"It's been _sixty years_ , and _you're dead_ , Lily. You were never going to get it."

"Fine," the shade pouted. " _Fare thee well_ , Severus _Aquinas_ Snape. I shall see thee on the other side. Or, you know, whenever. Thorn, I'd recommend starting with Miskatonic. I hear they've got an awesome Necro collection." And then she waved cheerfully, and vanished.

The Director sighed as he removed his finger from the Resurrection Stone. Rose picked it up gingerly, and slipped it back into her pocket.

"Ms. Granger," he said abruptly, shaking off the melancholy that seemed to have settled upon him. "I do believe you ought to go book yourself a jump to the Americas. I shall have a letter of Introduction to the Dean ready for you in within the hour."

"Yes, sir," she said, fighting the smile off her face. Who would have guessed that Severus Snape was the Director, and so much of what they knew about history was so _wrong?_ She couldn't _wait_ to tell the others at this year's Recounting.


End file.
